Jack Sheedy: The day John F. Kennedy looked my way

FILE - In this July 26, 1963 file photo, U.S. President John F. Kennedy sits behind microphones at his desk in Washington after finishing his radio-television broadcast to the nation on the nuclear test ban agreement initialed by negotiators in Moscow. (AP Photo/John Rous)

Everything lay ahead of John F. Kennedy the day our eyes met on Sunday, Nov. 6, 1960: his election on Nov. 8, his historic “Ask not” Inaugural Address, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and his shocking murder on the streets of Dallas. This future that is now history was hidden from sight on that chilly November Sunday.

This was the day that Kennedy, candidate for president of the United States, came home to New England for one final frenzied flurry of campaign stops. It was two days before his razor-thin victory over Richard M. Nixon. Kennedy toured Connecticut that day and cited in every speech that this was the state that had first placed his name in nomination. Now he was the Democratic candidate for president. And I saw him.

I was 14 when my mother drove my sister Ann, my brothers Tom and Gerald, and me to New Haven that Sunday, to see and hear Kennedy speak at the green. We stood in the second rank from the front barricade, in a crowd that would soon swell to about 50,000. Nearly everyone, it seemed, sported Kennedy-Johnson buttons or carried “JFK for President” placards.

It was noon, the appointed time for his speech, but Kennedy’s motorcade was running late. New Haven’s streets were jammed with people hoping for one look at the vibrant young Senator from Massachusetts.

On the green, the chant “We want Jack, we want Jack” grew louder and louder. A man with a thermos of coffee led us in a song, a takeoff of George M. Cohan’s “Harrigan.” “K-E-double-N-E-D-Y spells Kennedy … a name that a shame never has been connected to, Kennedy – for me!” Everyone applauded, and the man shared his coffee with fellow strangers.

It was ten past noon. A campaign song recorded by Frank Sinatra was played over the loudspeakers: a song about an ant who tries to move a rubber tree plant, “’Cause he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes, he’s got high, apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes!”

It was twenty past noon. Somewhere along the route, the motorcade stopped. Candidate Kennedy, riding bareheaded in an open car despite the cold, is said to have impulsively bought an apple from a roadside vendor, who was so awe-struck he refused payment. So the story goes.

A mighty cheer welled up from the crowd as Jack Kennedy strode briskly to the podium. He sported a gray suit and blue print necktie. When I saw him in profile I was struck by the magnificence of his sandy red hair. “Thank you!” he said as we cheered louder, and then he smiled – a wan, tired smile at first, but as the sustained cheering grew louder, it broadened into the famous JFK grin. The grin fed our enthusiasm, and we cheered and cheered.

If Kennedy looked a little tired, he had reason. He had arrived in the state before 1 a.m. and began what The New York Times called “one of the most unusual political motorcades in history.” Up the Naugatuck River Valley from Bridgeport to Waterbury he rode, inching his way for 27 miles through Shelton, Derby, Ansonia, Seymour, Beacon Falls, Naugatuck, Union City. There were people everywhere. Lights burned in windows of houses. Hundreds held torches or burned flares and displayed banners. It was an impressive outpouring. Arriving at his hotel in Waterbury at 3 a.m., he was greeted by 30,000 people on the New England Green, fervent supporters demanding a speech. So the tired candidate climbed onto the hotel balcony and spoke, and the crowd would not let him go until 4 a.m.

Now in New Haven, he spoke in cadenced phrases of America’s need to be even greater than it was. Each sentence brought cheers, and each cheer seemed to give the man more energy. His voice was strong and clear. He said Mr. Nixon mistakenly claimed that U.S. prestige abroad was never higher and that prosperity at home was never greater. “Dick Nixon says you never had it so good,” he said, and the crowd groaned.

“Atta boy, Jack!” I yelled, and the candidate, who had been surveying the crowd behind me most of his speech, heard me and squinted down at this kid. It was just a glance, the very briefest glance, but in that instant I felt he had picked me out from the crowd.

The speech ended, and my two brothers surged forward and shook Kennedy’s hand. I tried to fight my way to the barricade but couldn’t make it; but it was okay – we had already exchanged glances. The candidate waved and departed, and the crowd dispersed. Two days later America voted him into the Presidency.

And just 50 years ago this month, President John F. Kennedy was murdered.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Horatio says: “I saw him once. He was a goodly king.”

But Hamlet corrects him: “He was a man. Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.”

Jack Sheedy is the news editor for The Catholic Transcript, a contributor to The Register Citizen and the author of the memoir “Sting of the Heat Bug.”